Audit of Denmark 

Audit of Denmark 

As part of the Government’s action plan for growth and innovation in the Danish maritime cluster, Denmark was the first country to be audited by the UN’s International Maritime Organization, IMO.

An audit is an independent evaluation of whether a Member State fulfils its international obligations as flag, port and coast State. The audit of Denmark was carried out on 18 to 25 September 2006 and took place in accordance with the Voluntary IMO Member State Audit Scheme (VIMSAS).

Read more about VIMSAS here

The audit went well and the team carrying out the audit concluded that Denmark meets its obligations with regards to the IMO Mandatory Instruments as well as the Code implementing these instruments. Moreover, the audit team identified a number of areas of good legislative and administrative practice which were innovative, and thus beneficial to safety, health and the environment.

The audit team also made a number of observations, which the responsible Danish authorities i.e. the Danish Maritime Authority, the Danish Ministry of Defence, the Chief of Defence Denmark, the Royal Danish Administration of Navigation and Hydrography, the National Survey and Cadastre, the Admiral Danish Fleet, the Danish Meteorological Office, the Danish Coastal Authority and the Danish Directorate of Fisheries will look further into. These observations were, however, of minor importance according to the audit team, and did not disturb the overall image of Denmark as an efficient maritime administration. 

In order to increase transparency with regards to the Voluntary IMO Member State Audits, Denmark has decided - as the first country - to publish both the audit report and the action plan for the follow-up on the auditors’ observations.

Read the pre-audit-questionaire here

Read the audit report here

Read the action plan for follow-up on the auditors’ observations here

The team that carried out the audit of Denmark consisted of four auditors from different IMO Member States.